Interesting observation about morality in games

[alexxkay]

Was helping interview a candidate for a game design position today, and in the course of the conversation, he made a really interesting observation:

Videogames that have a morality system typically reward the player for picking one morality and sticking with it through the whole game. If you're always good, you get access to the best "good powers"; if you're always evil, you get access to the best "evil powers". This means that the player is (from a game-mechanics sense) discouraged from having any sort of character arc. If the player acts in a way that implies a character arc, current games can't even recognize that behavior, much less reward it.

Questions for future pondering:
Can videogame main characters have an arc?
If they could, would it be a Good Thing?

Comments

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

I am not sure I want my video games to reward morality at all. I think that actions should have 'realistic' consequences. Some of those can be seen as 'rewards' for 'evil' behavior, and some, the other way around. The interesting question is always are the rewards (of whatever action) worth the costs. There is no merit in always choosing the 'good' side, if that is always rewarded and never punished.

Those who want to play heroes recognize that not killing the bad guy in cold blood is going to leave the possibility (certainty in stories) of the bad guy escaping and doing more harm. They do it anyways.

Those who want to play villains recognize that their minions will be stupid and betray them whenever they can.

Those in between want the moral anguish from killing the bad guy.

Dynamic cost model

[metageek.livejournal.com]

The interesting question is always are the rewards (of whatever action) worth the costs. There is no merit in always choosing the 'good' side, if that is always rewarded and never punished.

You could steer people into a character arc by shifting the costs. Say the game involves fighting zombies. Early on, zombies are, well, zombies; all you can reasonably do is kill them. Kill zombies, rescue your wife, she starts helping kill zombies. Then things get more complicated: the zombies start getting smarter, and your wife starts wondering whether killing them is wrong. Every time you kill a zombie, she gets more and more angsty about it; if you just keep going, she leaves you, and soon you run into a boss zombie that you can't survive without her help. If you switch to killing zombies only when they're actually attacking, she sticks with you, you survive until the Turning Point.

At the Turning Point, you're fighting a bunch of zombies led by a much more intelligent zombie, who acts pretty much human...and turns out to be your daughter. If you kill her, your wife leaves you and becomes a powerful enemy; if you let your daughter go, she comes back to kill you. You have to find some third way, some way to keep your daughter alive (undead) while you look for a way to cure zombiehood. At this point, if you kill any zombie, there are serious costs—maybe you start tearing up, thinking of someone killing your daughter, and can't defend yourself.

Oh, and, once you've found the cure, then you have to decide what to do about people who want to remain zombies. Do they have the right to? Do you have the right to cure them against their will?

It's not the same as recognizing when a character is creating their own arc; but, really, that's an AI-complete problem. First you have to recognize good and evil; then you have to recognize a shift from one to the other; then you have to recognize when that shift is reflecting a coherent story. Oh, and then you have to figure out how to sell a video game that requires the player to make up a coherent story.

Re: Dynamic cost model

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Have you read Richard Matheson's _I am Legend_? (Or seen the fairly faithful Vincent Price movie adaptation "The Last Man on Earth"?) It has a similarly complex story arc.

(The recent movie adaptation with Will Smith was originally filmed with that arc, but they chickened out and slapped a new Hollywood ending on instead.)

Re: Dynamic cost model

[metageek.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't read/seen those; but that wasn't really the point. The point was just that, by adopting a slightly more complex cost model, you can get much more complex behavior.

Ideally, a cost model would provide for more than one arc, by being state-dependent. If you took too long to save your wife, she gets badly hurt by zombies, and develops an irrational hatred for them. She doesn't start feeling for them, and discovers that, if she cuts out their hearts, she finds something to let you control zombies. If you encourage her, you gain power, but eventually, when she meets your daughter, she realizes what she's been doing, and kills herself. If you don't encourage her, she gets over it herself; you don't get enough power to make a big difference in combat, but it is enough to keep your daughter safe, and maybe to cure her.